Wilderness Double Edition 25 Read online

  Life was one contradiction after another. Pain and pleasure. Love and hate. Happiness and sorrow. For every good aspect there was a bad, and both were dispensed in equal measure with no regard for anyone’s welfare.

  Nate breathed deep, filling his lungs with the crisp mountain air. It temporarily invigorated him. Lord, but he loved being alive! People who felt otherwise perplexed him, yet many did. To them life was a hollow, empty existence. To him it was a fountain of wonder.

  If Nate’s time had come, if this was to be his last night on earth, he had no regrets. He had savored life to the fullest. His civilized brethren were content to shuffle from cradle to grave in a daily grind of boredom, but not him. He had shattered his shackles. He had lived free, truly free, and gone places few others had gone, seen things few others had beheld.

  Nate’s only regret was that he might die without seeing his family again. Winona, Evelyn and Zach were everything to him. No man ever had a more caring wife, or children more worthy of respect. Sure, they had their faults. Everyone did. Winona carped too much. Zach was a hothead. Evelyn had an independent streak a mile wide. But he loved them and they loved him, and in the scheme of creation, was there anything that mattered more than love?

  A bead of sweat trickled into Nate’s left eye. The eye stung and watered, and he blinked it to clear his vision.

  His mind was wandering too much. It was more fitting to think about the meaning of life and death and love in the comfort of his rocking chair in front of the hearth, not here, not now, not with his body ravaged and him easy prey for the devil incarnate that was stalking him.

  Nate stopped and scanned his vicinity. The wolverine had to be there somewhere, watching and waiting. But waiting for what? The answer hit him like a hard punch to the gut.

  Predators were not stupid. They did not put themselves at risk when there was no need. Wolves would cripple an elk and follow it until it grew so weak from loss of blood that it collapsed and could not fight back when they closed in. Coyotes did the same with small deer. Rattlesnakes bit prey and waited for the venom to take effect before swallowing their catch whole.

  The wolverine knew Nate was badly hurt. It knew he had lost a lot of blood and was weakening. It was waiting for him to drop so it could feed on him without him resisting.

  “Damned clever,” Nate said aloud, and was startled by his voice. He did not sound like himself. He sounded like someone who had been to hell and back. “Where are you, you bastard?”

  Predictably, there was no response, no growl, no snarl, nothing.

  Nate laughed at how silly he was being, and once he started, he could not stop. He laughed until his sides hurt and an invisible troll was beating on his head with an invisible hammer.

  Suddenly Nate stopped. He was acting childish. Lapses like the bout of laughter could get him killed. It was so unlike him that the only explanation were the bites. Not only had they made him lightheaded and dizzy, they were affecting him in unforeseen ways.

  Nate continued hiking. He swung his makeshift crutch to avoid a pine and put all his weight on his good leg. It was holding up, thank God, but he must go easy or he would exhaust himself long before he reached the bottom of the mountain. Yet another irony; he couldn’t take it easy, not with the glutton after him.

  “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Nate said, and clamped his mouth shut. Talking to himself was another thing he must not do.

  An owl hooted, reminding Nate that creatures besides the wolverine were abroad. With dried blood all over him, he was a lure for every meat eater for half a mile around.

  Nate adopted a rhythm: lift the Hawken; swing the Hawken; take a step. Lift the Hawken; swing the Hawken; take a step. Over and over, until he performed the monotonous movements mechanically.

  His body became one continual ache. His mind dulled to where his eyelids drooped. He felt his chin dip to his chest and snapped his head up. He must not pass out. He must not give up. Think of Winona! he inwardly shouted. Think of Winona and Evelyn and Zach and Lou and the McNairs.

  But God, Nate was tired. Losing so much blood had drained his vitality. He was a shell of his usual self, an exhausted husk animated by a spark, and the spark was fading.

  He lifted the Hawken; he swung the Hawken; he took a step.

  A hiss roused Nate out of his stupor. It sounded like a dozen angry rattlesnakes venting their anger. Bracing himself on the rifle, he turned as fast as he could without tripping.

  The wolverine had finally deigned to come out of the shadows. Powerful body coiled, it bared its fangs. The glutton had sensed that its quarry was close to collapsing and intended to hasten the collapse along.

  Nate smiled grimly. “So there you are! Make buzzard bait of me if you can.” So saying, he raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, other than a loud click. A misfire. He remembered the wolverine wrenching the pistol from his grasp back at the bluff, and he realized, in dismay, that he had neglected to check it afterward.

  The wolverine snarled. A few more seconds, and it exploded toward him.

  Nate did the only thing he could; he hurled the useless pistol at the glutton’s head. He missed, but it forced the wolverine to dodge, gaining Nate the instant he needed to draw his other pistol. He cocked the flintlock as his arm rose.

  The wolverine launched itself through the air, and Nate fired. The blast, the spurt of smoke and flame, were simultaneous. The ball cored the wolverine high in the shoulder and spun it half around. It landed like a cat on all fours, snarled fiercely, and in a twinkling vanished into the greenery.

  Nate stared in incredulous disbelief. His rifle was useless, his pistols spent. The tomahawk and bowie knife were at his waist but in his weakened state, he could not wield them effectively. The glutton had him at its mercy but unwittingly gave him a reprieve.

  “Idiot,” Nate said, and giggled giddily. Suddenly his lightheadedness worsened, and his knees threatened to give out. Relying on his crutch, he pivoted and hurried off as fast as he could hobble. As he went, he reloaded the flintlocks. His fingers were as sluggish as his brain, and it took much longer than it should have, much longer than was safe.

  As he reloaded, Nate castigated himself. He was the idiot, not the wolverine. Instead of wearing himself down to the point where he was helpless, he should find somewhere to rest for a while, somewhere the wolverine could not get at him. Which was easier contemplated than done, especially in the dark. Climbing a tree was out of the question. He was too weak. A convenient cave would do him, but so far as he knew there were no caves anywhere in the valley.

  What to do? What to do?

  The excitement of confronting the wolverine had lent Nate a temporary boost of energy. He traveled over a hundred yards before his legs protested. He forged on. The wolverine was injured, but it would not stay away forever. When it grew hungry enough, it would take up where it had left off.

  Nate suffered bouts of burning hot alternated by bouts of icy cold. One minute it felt like the temperature was a hundred and twenty, the next it felt as if it were the middle of winter.

  A twig crunched to Nate’s right. He spun, and the Hawken fell. Without its support he tottered, and he placed his right foot flat on the ground to regain his balance. It was the wrong thing to do. His leg exploded in agony. It buckled, and he fell to his hands and knees.

  Expecting the glutton to hurtle out of the undergrowth, Nate grabbed the Hawken and hastily pushed erect. He was surprised the wolverine did not attack.

  Maybe it wanted him so weak, he could not stand.

  A quarter of an hour went by. The steep slope gave way to one less so. The pines merged into cottonwoods, and cottonwoods were a sign of water.

  Sure enough, Nate soon heard a sustained gurgle. He hobbled faster, grinning when he broke from cover and beheld the darkly glimmering surface of one of the several streams that fed the lake. He moved briskly to its grassy edge, sank wearily onto his good knee, and eagerly cupped his hands.

  Nate was
hard pressed to recollect a time when water tasted so delicious. He drank several mouthfuls, then stopped to avoid upsetting his stomach. After glancing about to ensure it was safe, he plunged his entire head in, but only for a few seconds. Dripping wet from the neck up, he leaned back on his haunches and shook his head, spraying drops every which way.

  It felt so good, Nate wanted to plunge his head in again. But he should not tempt an early grave twice. Instead, he loosened his buckskin shirt and splashed water down his chest. Goose bumps sprouted, and he shivered.

  Across the stream the brush rustled and popped. Something was coming toward him, and coming fast.

  Nate extended his arm and sighted down the pistol.

  He could not hold it completely steady, so he used both hands.

  The crackling grew louder. It could not be the wolverine because the wolverine was behind him. It was another of the night’s denizens, a meat eater perhaps, that had caught Nate’s blood-drenched scent and pegged him as dinner.

  A silhouette took shape. Whatever it was, it was much larger than the wolverine. Breaking into the open, it charged straight toward him.

  Fifteen

  Shakespeare McNair centered his rifle on the wolverine that had been limping. Another shot might bring it down permanently. But as his finger tightened on the trigger, both gluttons sprang toward the spruce. He swung the muzzle but the wolverines were under the spruce before he could squeeze off a shot.

  Shakespeare could not see them for all the limbs. He could hear them, though, sniffing and growling. He chided himself for not firing sooner. Now they had him treed. He figured they would wait him out. Sooner or later hunger or thirst would drive him down. But he failed to take into account the persistence for which gluttons were famous.

  Wolverines never gave up. They never backed down. They never let prey escape. When they wanted to kill something, they killed it. When they wanted to help themselves to prey slain by other predators, they did; there were reports of wolverines driving grizzlies off kills.

  When loud scratching rose from below, Shakespeare’s brow knit in consternation. He assumed the gluttons were digging their claws into the trunk, marking the tree as bears were wont to do. Then the spruce shook slightly, and some of the lower branches rustled and swayed.

  Sweat broke out all over Shakespeare’s body. The wolverines weren’t scratching the spruce, they were climbing it.

  Suddenly Shakespeare’s brainstorm did not seem so brilliant. Wolverines were at home in trees. They often waited on branches to pounce on unwary prey. They were good climbers. Surprisingly agile, given their size, and certainly better climbers then he was.

  The bottom half of the spruce was shrouded in darkness. Shakespeare shifted but could not spot them.

  “Consarn these critters to Hades,” Shakespeare fumed. He was mad at himself, not them, for being such a dunderhead.

  Another growl gave him an inkling of how close they were.

  Shakespeare probed the branches. He peered behind the trunk. They could be anywhere. He started to rise so he could watch both sides of the tree at once. He forgot charred limbs made for precarious footing. His left foot slipped, and he clutched the trunk to keep from falling. He almost dropped the Hawken.

  There was a savage snarl, and a feral face materialized out of the dark. Razor teeth snapped at Shakespeare’s leg, and missed. He pointed his rifle but the wolverine disappeared.

  Shakespeare decided to stir things up. If he could rile them, it might provoke them into trying to get him and he could blast them into oblivion. Accordingly, he gripped the nearest charred branch and twisted, but it was too strong. He tried another. A crack rewarded his effort. The piece was ten inches long. He broke it into thirds and threw one of the pieces at where he had seen the wolverine. Clattering resulted as the stick dropped from limb to limb and ultimately struck the ground.

  Shakespeare tried again. He threw a piece to the left of the first. Again there was the clack of wood on wood but nothing else. Disappointed, Shakespeare threw the last piece to the right.

  Almost immediately, a rumbling growl arose. Quickly, Shakespeare broke off another limb, broke it, and threw the largest piece. Another growl heralded sudden scrambling and a wolverine appeared almost at his feet.

  Claws sheared at his leg. Shakespeare jerked his leg aside, pointed the Hawken straight down, and fired. At that range, he should have blown the glutton’s brains out. But the beast moved and the ball thudded into the trunk.

  Again it disappeared among the boughs.

  His fingers flying, Shakespeare commenced to reload. That had not gone as well as he hoped. Stirring the wolverines up was easy enough but shooting them was not. They were too incredibly fast.

  Shakespeare uncapped his powder horn and carefully poured the proper amount of powder down the Hawken’s muzzle. Some of the black grains spilled. Not a lot, but enough, evidently, that there was a loud sneeze.

  “Bless you,” Shakespeare said. He chortled, then paraphrased, “I should not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving thy reek.”

  A limb lower down moved. Then the one next to it, and the one next to that. One after the other in a half circle, until the swaying stopped at a limb on the other side of the tree.

  “Tricky devils,” Shakespeare complimented them. “Two directions at once, is that your intent? Well, you won’t find me napping.” He wrapped a ball in a patch, thumbed both into the end of the barrel, and slid the ramrod from its housing. “Just hold your horses another thirty seconds so I can treat you to the reception you deserve.” He applied the ramrod.

  Movement signified the wolverines were about to tear him from his roost. Shakespeare kept glancing from one side of the spruce to the other, unsure which animal would try for him first. He finished reloading and held the Hawken ready.

  “What are you waiting for, you whoreson scurvy vermin?” Shakespeare taunted. “Your greatest want is you want much of meat. Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots. Within this mile break forth a hundred springs. The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips. The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush lays her full mess before you. Want! Why want?”

  The gluttons stayed silent.

  “What’s this, then?” Shakespeare said. “Does a Skunk Bear have your tongue?” He tittered gleefully. “But I shouldn’t blame you, should I, when you are only doing what wolverines do.” He quoted more William S. “A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee to attain to. If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; If thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused by the ass; if thou wert the ass, thy dullness would torment thee, and still thou livedst but as a breakfast for the wolf; if thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee.” He paused. “Not that wolves are any more greedy than you two bastards.” There was no movement anywhere.

  “According to the fair play of the world, let me have an audience.” Shakespeare tossed down a verbal gauntlet. “Then let the earth be drunken with our blood!”

  As if that were their cue, the wolverines streaked toward him, one up the near side, the other up the far side. They climbed with the facility of squirrels, springing from limb to limb.

  Shakespeare sighted down the barrel, and fired. The glutton about to rend his legs stopped in mid leap as if it had charged into an invisible wall. It fell back, bounced off a branch, and plummeted from sight.

  That left the other. Palming his pistol, Shakespeare whirled. It was almost on him, its claws raking the trunk for purchase. He leaned down to be sure he would not miss, shoving the flintlock at the wolverine’s eyes. He smiled as he fired, thinking his nightmare was over.

  The sound of the branch under him breaking was lost in the boom of the pistol. Shakespeare dropped feet first. He glimpsed gleaming eyes and tapered teeth. His right heel struck a limb and he tumbled into space. An illusion, for there were so many branches, he careened into one after another. He lost his
sense of which way was up and which way was down.

  A tremendous blow to Shakespeare’s gut caused the world to wink out of existence. When it winked back again, he was on his belly over a limb, his arms and legs dangling. His entire body was a welter of pain.

  Shakespeare raised his head. He had lost his rifle. He had lost his pistol. He had nearly lost his life. A slight sound alerted him to a furry form descending rapidly toward him. The sight galvanized him into placing his hands on the limb and swinging his legs up to straddle it. He swooped a hand to his waist, fearing he had lost his knife, but the bone handle molded to his fingers just as the wolverine came to the branch he was on and started toward him.

  Shakespeare waited until the glutton was so close he could see its nostrils flare, and swung. The tip of the blade sliced into its neck as, with lightning swiftness, the wolverine sprang back out of reach.

  Snarling, the glutton crouched and fixed him with its baleful eyes. If ever a creature craved his life, this was the one.

  Shakespeare held the knife point out. He could not move with the wolverine so near. He waited for it to do something, anything, but strangely enough all it did was stare.

  Then a bough behind Shakespeare bent and bounced with a heavy weight, and as he glanced around, out of the murk came the second wolverine. They had suckered him, and now had him between them.

  Shakespeare gingerly shifted. He had one on the right and one on the left and only his knife with which to defend himself. It hardly seemed adequate. The Hawken had not slain them. The pistol had not slain them. What did it take? he asked himself. A cannon? A keg of powder to blow them to bits? He remembered an old French trapper telling him wolverines were impossible to kill, and that Frenchman might have been right.